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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28354569">anything could happen</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy'>dearzoemurphy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>New Girl (TV 2011)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s02e15 Cooler, Extended Scene, F/M, POV Jessica Day</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:22:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,840</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28354569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Because it’s a fantastic coat! It gives me confidence,” Nick protested. </p>
  <p><i>“But not the confidence to kiss me during our stupid drinking game,”</i> Jess wanted to say. She bit back the retort and buried the very thought as deep as she possibly could. It was probably better that not even the stupid coat could give him the confidence to do so. It wasn’t like she <i>wanted</i> to kiss him or anything.</p>
</blockquote>The end of Cooler from Jess’ perspective.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jessica Day/Nick Miller</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>anything could happen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There it was. That damn scratching noise again.</p><p>Jess tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the gears in her head started turning before she could do anything about it.</p><p><em>“What if it’s someone trying to break in and rob us blind?”</em> she thought, her mind quickly beginning to spiral into a series of worst case scenarios, <em>“What if it’s a wombat that escaped from the zoo? What if Remy’s out there trying to bait us into a threesome again? What if…”</em></p><p>A quick glance to the side confirmed that Sam was still fast asleep right next to her. She reached over and gently poked him in the arm to see if he would stir. He didn’t, so Jess sighed, sat up, pushed the covers off of herself, and bravely swung her legs over the edge of the bed.</p><p>The previous night, she’d fashioned a weapon out of her hair curler and a broom and propped it up near her door just in case she needed to defend herself. Now, the need had arisen, and Jess grabbed it as she slipped out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.</p><p>Tightly gripping onto her makeshift weapon, Jess darted down the hallway and locked eyes on the front door. She noticed that Nick’s door was open, so she decided to call upon him for backup. (Proving to him that she wasn’t crazy or making the whole thing up would be an unintended bonus.)</p><p>“Nick!” she whispered, loud enough that he could hear, “The scratching’s back!”</p><p>She heard him let out a deep sigh, followed by a loud creaking noise, signifying that he had gotten up and was coming to help her defend their home.</p><p>“Alright, alright,” he muttered. Jess swiveled to see him walking towards her and sleepily rubbing his eyes.</p><p>“Jess, I’ll take care of it, relax.” Nick reached out to squeeze her arm before boldly charging onwards. Jess gripped the broom handle a little bit tighter as he looked through the peephole and surveyed the area.</p><p>“There’s nobody there,” Nick said. He turned the knob and pushed the door open to prove his point. However, it was only a moment before he was greeted by a rather large dog, loudly barking and jumping up to lick his face. Jess could hardly help but laugh upon realizing that the sound that had tortured her for the past two nights was merely the result of an escaped and overly excited dog (said dog slobbering all over one Nick Miller - who had mocked her abundance of caution - only made her laugh harder).</p><p>“Admiral! Brian!” A woman out in the hall began yelling, her voice growing louder as she rushed towards apartment 4D. “Admiral Hornbeck! Brian, down!” she commanded, wrestling the dog away from Nick.</p><p>“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, sometimes he gets out, and…” the woman trailed off as she looked up and saw what Nick was wearing.</p><p>“Is that my coat?” she asked incredulously.</p><p>Jess snickered as she watched Nick frantically look down at what he was wearing.</p><p>“What?!”</p><p>The woman’s jaw dropped. “I thought it was delivered here!”</p><p>“It’s her coat!” Jess said triumphantly, dropping her weapon and stepping forward so that she was now standing next to Nick.</p><p>“I was knocking and knocking and…were you sleeping in it?!”</p><p>Jess glanced at her roommate out of the corner of her eye and took note of his currently disheveled state. “I think he might have been.”</p><p>“Why?!”</p><p>“Because it’s a fantastic coat! It gives me confidence,” Nick protested.</p><p><em>“But not the confidence to kiss me during our stupid drinking game,”</em> Jess wanted to say. She bit back the retort and buried the very thought as deep as she possibly could. It was probably better that not even the stupid coat could give him the confidence to do so. It wasn’t like she <em>wanted</em> to kiss him or anything.</p><p>“Man, it’s a women’s coat. What are you doing?!”</p><p>Jess shook her head as Nick started desperately clutching at the suede fabric. “Nick, give her the coat,” she gently instructed.</p><p>He ran his hands over the front of it as if this were a dreaded goodbye. “I love this coat…” he murmured. Nevertheless, he slowly unbuttoned it, shrugged his arms out of the sleeves, and folded it in half to hand it over to their disgruntled neighbor. Jess noticed his fingers desperately trying to clutch onto it as the woman took it back, and almost felt sorry that he had to give up his surprisingly beloved garment.</p><p>“So much weird crap happens in this apartment,” the woman muttered, shaking her head as she fastened her dog’s leash into place. With a last incredulous head shake and a tug on the leash, she turned and started walking away.  </p><p>“He’s really sorry!” Jess called after her, feeling the need to apologize despite not having any involvement in Nick’s decision to hold her clearly feminine coat hostage.</p><p>Nick sighed and moved to shut the door as their neighbor left their line of sight.</p><p>“God!” Jess exclaimed once the door was closed. The two of them laughed, Nick at the absurdity of the situation and Jess at how poorly it had ended for him. Without wasting any more time, they turned and started walking back down the hallway towards their respective rooms.</p><p>“Well, I guess the old Nick is back, huh?” she asked as they were strolling down the hall, side-by-side, close enough that she could have reached out and taken his hand without any problems.</p><p>“Yeah. I’m gonna miss Trench Coat Nick. I liked him.”</p><p>They both laughed again as they slowly came to a stop in the middle of the hallway, now in front of the doors to their rooms.</p><p>“I might miss him,” Jess admitted, shrugging and crossing her arms in front of her chest.</p><p>“He was pretty great. He had guts,” Nick said wistfully.</p><p>Jess leaned in closer and scrunched up her nose slightly. “You know, it was a woman’s coat.”</p><p>As their laughter continued, they drifted closer; almost as close as they had been earlier that evening. Earlier when Nick had been trying to kiss her. Earlier when she thought that maybe it would be nice to kiss Nick Miller.</p><p>Almost as soon as she fell into that line of thinking, Jess snapped out of it. She pulled herself away from him and reached out to give him a friendly pat on the arm.</p><p>“Well, good night, Nick.”</p><p>She knew that she turned away. She knew that she had intended to do the right thing. She knew that he had grabbed her by the arm and that it happened so fast and then-</p><p>There was a technicolor explosion.</p><p>Jess didn’t think about what was happening. She didn’t even have to force herself not to think about it. All she knew were lips and hands and tongues and teeth and <em>Nick’s</em> lips meeting hers and <em>Nick’s</em> hands roaming all over her and her hands roaming all over <em>Nick Miller</em>, of all people. All she knew was Nick.</p><p>After an impossibly long moment in time, he pulled back. Jess tried to open her eyes. She tried to process what had happened - really, she did - but there wasn’t enough time between taking a breath and him diving back in for her to do so.</p><p>The tender coda wasn’t as vibrant as the symphony that preceded it. But god, if it didn’t make her heart flutter in a way nothing else had in quite a long time.</p><p>“I meant something like that,” Nick said. He gazed at Jess for a moment, like she was a broken vase or some other tragic, beautiful thing.</p><p>Before Jess could think, speak, say something, <em>anything</em>, he ducked out of her partial embrace and disappeared into his room, leaving her to watch him walk away. And then she was all alone out in the hall.</p><p>There were no coherent thoughts in Jessica Day’s mind for several moments. Only feelings. Sensations. The ghost of Nick Miller’s lips dancing across hers. All she could do was stare open-mouthed at the door to his room and try to replay the past few minutes in her head in a vain attempt to figure out where she had gone wrong.</p><p>She was jolted out of her state of shock by the sound of a door creaking open behind her. After whipping around, she was greeted with the sight of a clearly exhausted Sam holding up her melon headed dummy of Nick.</p><p>“Oh, uh, hey! Babe, do you mind if I, uh, put this somewhere else?” he asked, “It’s kind of creeping me out, and I can’t get back to sleep.”</p><p>Jess shook her head, attempting to clear the fog currently clouding her vision and her judgement. “Yeah, that’s fine. That’s…fine.”</p><p>Sam nodded before tossing the fake Nick onto the ground right in front of her door. Jess stepped over its remains on her way back into her bedroom and tried not to feel guilty as Sam planted a kiss on the top of her head.</p><p>“Are you okay, babe? You seem a little…rattled.”</p><p>“Hm?” Jess sunk onto her bed as he shut the door and did her best to make herself comfortable. “Yeah, I’m fine! I’m great. I’m cool, totally cool.”</p><p>“Alright, whatever you say. I’ll see ya in the morning,” Sam said, shrugging as he made his way around the foot of her bed and slid under the covers next to her, “Night night.”</p><p>“Good night,” she half-heartedly replied.</p><p>Jess switched off the lamp beside her and moved so that she was laying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling above her.</p><p><em>“Maybe I shouldn’t try to think about this anymore. Maybe it’ll be better to sleep on it,”</em> she thought, <em>“Actually, I know! I can just avoid Nick for the rest of my life! Yeah, great plan.”</em></p><p>Jess let her eyes flutter shut, content with her unrealistic plan for how to deal with this unbelievable situation. However, upon closing her eyes, all she could see was incredible, breathtaking color. The colors that had appeared when Nick had reached out and taken his leap of faith. Colors that Jess swore she’d never seen before. Not in nature, not in art, not with anyone else. Only with Nick. Only in the hallway between their bedrooms.</p><p>The hallway currently separating them felt like an ocean.</p><p><em>“It’s a good thing that you’re separated from him. Because you’re with Sam. Sam is your boyfriend. You like Sam,”</em> Jess chided herself.</p><p>She’d never seen those colors with Sam. She’d never felt like this when he kissed her.</p><p><em>“But that’s a problem for future Jess,”</em> she resolved, turning over and defiantly curling herself up in a ball facing Sam.</p><p><em>“At least I figured out what the scratching noise was…”</em> she thought as she drifted off to sleep, only to be greeted by visions of Nick looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the entire goddamn universe.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>really this all started with the technicolor explosion line and blossomed from there. I wondered what Jess was thinking during those last few minutes of Cooler and figured hey, why not write it out myself?</p><p>as always, please leave any thoughts/opinions/etc. down below!! Also feel free to find me on tumblr at paradigmsofbrittaperry and chat with me there. I hope you’re all staying safe and having a wonderful holiday season!! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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